FOOTNOTES: 

[139] For statistics of sericulture, see Appendix XXXIX.

[140] She is examined microscopically in order to make sure that she was not affected by infectious disease.

CHAPTER XVIII

“GIRL COLLECTORS” AND FACTORIES

(NAGANO AND YAMANASHI)

At your return show the truth.—­FROISSART

I visited factories in more than one prefecture.  At the first factory—­it employed about 1,000 girls and 200 men—­work began at 4.30 a.m., breakfast was at 5 and the next meal at 10.30.  The stoppages for eating were for a few minutes only.  A cake was handed to each girl at her machine at 3.  Suppertime came after work was finished at 7.[141] No money was paid the first year.  The second year the wages might be 3 or 4 yen a month.  The statement was made that at the end of her five years’ term a girl might have 300 yen, but that this sum was not within the reach of all.[142] The girls were driven at top speed by a flag system in which one bay competed with another and was paid according to its earnings.  Owing to the heat the flushed girls probably looked better in health than they really were.  They were fat in the face, but this could not be regarded as an indication of their general well-being.  It was admitted that some girls left through illness.  Employees returned to their homes for January and February, when the factory was closed down; there was also three days’ holiday in June.  In the dormitory I noticed that each girl had the space of one mat only (6 ft. by 3 ft.).  Twenty-two girls slept in each dormitory.  The men connected with this factory were low-looking and shifty-eyed.

An agricultural expert who was well acquainted with the conditions of silk manufacture and of the district and was in a disinterested position told me after my visit to this factory how the foremen scoured the country for girl labour during January and February.  The success of the kemban or girl collector was due to the poverty of the people, who were glad “to be relieved of the cost of a daughter’s food.”  Occasionally the kemban had sub-agents.  The mill proprietors were in competition for skilled girls, and money was given by a kemban intent on stealing another factory’s hand.

The novices had no contract.  The contract of a skilled girl provided that she should serve at the factory for a specified period and that if she failed to do so, she should pay back twenty times the 5 yen or whatever sum had been advanced to her.  Obviously 100 yen would be a prohibitive sum for a peasant’s daughter to find.  The amount of the workers’ pay was not specified in the contract.  The document was plainly one-sided and would be regarded in an English court as against public policy and unenforceable.  Married women might take an infant with them to the factory.  In more than one factory I saw several thin-faced babies.